discuss: Thread: [Debian removes free documentation / technical aspects]

Moving GFDL Documentation to non-free. After the Debian Project
[5]decided upon the freeness of documentation released under the GNU
Free Documentation [6]license (GFDL), Jérôme Marant [7]wondered
about the best way to move non-free parts from his emacs package to
non-free. Jörg Jaspert [8]answered that the source tarball has to be
split into two parts and that the free source package should not be
renamed.

 5. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/03/msg00012.html
 6. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
 7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/03/msg01061.html
 8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/03/msg01072.html

-- 
S.

On Wed, Apr 05, 2006 at 09:48:25AM +0200, Sergiusz Pawlowicz wrote:
> Moving GFDL Documentation to non-free. After the Debian Project
> [5]decided upon the freeness of documentation released under the GNU
> Free Documentation [6]license (GFDL), J?r?me Marant [7]wondered
> about the best way to move non-free parts from his emacs package to
> non-free. J?rg Jaspert [8]answered that the source tarball has to be
> split into two parts and that the free source package should not be
> renamed.
> 
>  5. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/03/msg00012.html
>  6. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
>  7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/03/msg01061.html
>  8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/03/msg01072.html

This is not a problem for LDP.  But in a way it is since per the
manifesto we are supposed to be concerned with all aspects of Linux
documentation, not just the documentation created by our authors.

To split a software package into two parts because of the
documentation license is absurd in this case (in my opinion).  I think
that many of people that voted on this Debian policy didn't envision
this kind of thing happening.

The non-modifiable section is likely just a statement supporting free
software (the GNU Manifesto ?).  What's wrong with that?  Well, it
might be wrong if it was an advertisement of some sort.  Also, I think
that there should be a time limit on how long such non-modifiable
sections remain non-modifiable.

I understand the GFDL is going to be modified this year, but I don't
expect a lot of improvement.  Other problems with it is that it's too
long and is supposed to be included with the doc, rather than by html
reference.

Another situation is that many people don't understand that it's much
more important to have a free license for software than it is to have
a free license for documentation.  Non-free software can't be studied
unless it's open source and even then it may be hard to study due to poor
comments.  Not so for non-free documentation, where it's designed to be
read and understood by the readers (users).  And readers can then
utilize the facts they learn to write improved documentation since
facts themselves are not copyrighted.

There's also the problem of people adding advertisements to
documentation.  I checked on this a few years ago on the Internet for
one of my HOWTOs and found many sites that had added advertising.  I
suppose it's time to check again.

All these problems mean that a new and better documentation license is
needed and perhaps LDP could come up with one.  I'm not too encouraged
since when I mentioned my proposal for prohibiting adding advertising
to docs at the San Diego Doc Summit in 2001 there was only opposition.

			David Lawyer

On 06/04/09 17:59 -0700, David Lawyer said ...
> 
> The non-modifiable section is likely just a statement supporting free
> software (the GNU Manifesto ?).  What's wrong with that?  Well, it

This happens to be the case only with the GNU documentation.  Others who
license documentation under the GFDL don't include the GNU Manifesto in
their documentation and indicate that it is an invariant section.

> Another situation is that many people don't understand that it's much
> more important to have a free license for software than it is to have
> a free license for documentation.  Non-free software can't be studied
> unless it's open source and even then it may be hard to study due to

Non free software _can_ be "studied" even if it is not open source.
Microsoft has a program wherein you can sign an agreement / accept a
license and look at the source code of their software.  I doubt if the
point of a free software license is to be able to just "study" it.

> poor comments.  Not so for non-free documentation, where it's designed
> to be read and understood by the readers (users).  And readers can
> then utilize the facts they learn to write improved documentation
> since facts themselves are not copyrighted.

The situation would be similar in case of non-free software.  Like for
instance, one group of people can study a software and document it and
then a totally different group that did not look at the original source
code can implement that functionality (maybe "improved" in some ways:
lesser number of bugs, more features etc.?).  This wouldn't be against
copyright laws either.

... Or, did I miss the point that you were trying to make? :)

> All these problems mean that a new and better documentation license is
> needed and perhaps LDP could come up with one.  I'm not too encouraged

I really don't see the need for another _new_ license.  From what I
understand of what you say, it looks like we need certain guidelines on
_what_ we consider a free documentation license.  Something on the lines
of the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) and tests that will help
us determine if a license is free enough or not for our purpose.

Giridhar

-- 
Y Giridhar Appaji Nag | http://www.appaji.net/

On Thu, Apr 13, 2006 at 11:05:53PM +0530, Y Giridhar Appaji Nag wrote:
> On 06/04/09 17:59 -0700, David Lawyer said ...
> > 
> > The non-modifiable section is likely just a statement supporting free
> > software (the GNU Manifesto ?).  What's wrong with that?  Well, it
> 
> This happens to be the case only with the GNU documentation.  Others who
> license documentation under the GFDL don't include the GNU Manifesto in
> their documentation and indicate that it is an invariant section.
That's true.  Is there any survey of what is put in these invariant
sections?
> 
> > Another situation is that many people don't understand that it's much
> > more important to have a free license for software than it is to have
> > a free license for documentation.  Non-free software can't be studied
> > unless it's open source and even then it may be hard to study due to
> 
> Non free software _can_ be "studied" even if it is not open source.
> Microsoft has a program wherein you can sign an agreement / accept a
> license and look at the source code of their software.  I doubt if the
> point of a free software license is to be able to just "study" it.

It's one of the points or course.  It's probably a lot simpler to
check out non-free books from a library and study them than to arrange
with M$ to study their code.

> > poor comments.  Not so for non-free documentation, where it's designed
> > to be read and understood by the readers (users).  And readers can
> > then utilize the facts they learn to write improved documentation
> > since facts themselves are not copyrighted.
> 
> The situation would be similar in case of non-free software.  Like for
> instance, one group of people can study a software and document it and
> then a totally different group that did not look at the original source
> code can implement that functionality (maybe "improved" in some ways:
> lesser number of bugs, more features etc.?).  This wouldn't be against
> copyright laws either.

With regard to documentation, it's often the same person that studies
the existing documentation and also writes the new documentation.
> 
> ... Or, did I miss the point that you were trying to make? :)
I guess you did.  I was trying to show why non-free software is
significantly more detrimental to society than non-free documentation.

> > All these problems mean that a new and better documentation license is
> > needed and perhaps LDP could come up with one.  I'm not too encouraged
> 
> I really don't see the need for another _new_ license.  From what I
> understand of what you say, it looks like we need certain guidelines on
> _what_ we consider a free documentation license.  Something on the lines
> of the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) and tests that will help
> us determine if a license is free enough or not for our purpose.

Although you didn't necessarily imply that the DFSG are OK, I don't
think they are very good.  The major problem with them is that they
mainly state what the license must not restrict, not the rights that
the license must grant.  This results in possible loopholes.  For
example, if a license doesn't have any restrictions, then the
copyrighted work is still very much restricted by copyright law.  In
this case, for the DFSG to apply, such a license that has no
restrictions must be interpreted as one that has all the restrictions
of copyright law.  Such an interpretation is of debatable validity.
So the DFSG should be redone to mainly specify what rights the licence
should grant.
			David Lawyer

On 2006/04/16, at 12:29, David Lawyer wrote:

> Although you didn't necessarily imply that the DFSG are OK, I don't
> think they are very good.  The major problem with them is that they
> mainly state what the license must not restrict, not the rights that
> the license must grant.  This results in possible loopholes.  For
> example, if a license doesn't have any restrictions, then the
> copyrighted work is still very much restricted by copyright law.  In
> this case, for the DFSG to apply, such a license that has no
> restrictions must be interpreted as one that has all the restrictions
> of copyright law.  Such an interpretation is of debatable validity.
> So the DFSG should be redone to mainly specify what rights the licence
> should grant.

My understanding was that licenses (free or not) apply exclusively to  
copyrighted material. Which means that unless a document is put in  
the public domain (and thus cannot have its use restricted by _any_  
form of licensing) all the rules regarding copyright apply. And that  
is regardless of the license.

The play on word with "copyleft" in only a play on word and does not  
mean that there is no copyright on the free documents.

A licence cannot grant rights not allowed by copyright law. Those are  
two different realms.

Jean-Christophe Helary

On Sunday 16 April 2006 01:07 am, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
> A licence cannot grant rights not allowed by copyright law. 

I'm almost certain it can.  The one exception in some countries other than the 
US might be the authors "moral" right of authorship (is that how that's 
phrased), which, iiuc, in those countries cannot be transferred from the 
author under any circumstances.

Randy Kramer


> Those are 
> two different realms.

On 2006/04/16, at 21:27, Randy Kramer wrote:

> On Sunday 16 April 2006 01:07 am, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
>> A licence cannot grant rights not allowed by copyright law.
>
> I'm almost certain it can.  The one exception in some countries  
> other than the
> US might be the authors "moral" right of authorship (is that how  
> that's
> phrased), which, iiuc, in those countries cannot be transferred  
> from the
> author under any circumstances.

I suppose that is possible in area where copyright laws are not  
existant or not strong. But:

>> Those are two different realms.

Also means that the "copyright" side is here to grant the _author_  
some rights while the licence is here for the _author_ to grant the  
_user_ some rights.

Whether such rights are overlapping or not is a different issue.  
Which is also the reason why licencing can only exist within  
copyright law.

Also, I am not a lawyer, only a person who has been involved as part  
of a dvp team in copyright/gpl issues.

Jean-Christophe Helary

On Sun, Apr 16, 2006 at 08:27:14AM -0400, Randy Kramer wrote:
> On Sunday 16 April 2006 01:07 am, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
> > A licence cannot grant rights not allowed by copyright law. 
> 
> I'm almost certain it can.  The one exception in some countries
> other than the US might be the authors "moral" right of authorship
> (is that how that's phrased), which, iiuc, in those countries cannot
> be transferred from the author under any circumstances.

If I recall correctly, I thought that "moral" rights were effective
in the U.S. also, but are not spelled out in statue law.  This would
mean that even if you use public domain material, you must give the
author credit.  I've noticed that large chunks of one of my HOWTO's
have been put on the Internet without acknowledgement that I wrote it.
This is a violation of my "moral" rights but I'm too busy to do
anything about it.  I wonder how often this happens to other HOWTOs.

Often the author never knows about it.  You have to search on a phrase
from your document, picking one that no one else would be likely to
use.

		David Lawyer

On Sunday 16 April 2006 02:01 pm, David Lawyer wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 16, 2006 at 08:27:14AM -0400, Randy Kramer wrote:
> > On Sunday 16 April 2006 01:07 am, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
> > > A licence cannot grant rights not allowed by copyright law.
> >
> > I'm almost certain it can.  The one exception in some countries
> > other than the US might be the authors "moral" right of authorship
> > (is that how that's phrased), which, iiuc, in those countries cannot
> > be transferred from the author under any circumstances.
>
> If I recall correctly, I thought that "moral" rights were effective
> in the U.S. also, but are not spelled out in statue law.  This would
> mean that even if you use public domain material, you must give the
> author credit.  I've noticed that large chunks of one of my HOWTO's
> have been put on the Internet without acknowledgement that I wrote it.
> This is a violation of my "moral" rights but I'm too busy to do
> anything about it.  I wonder how often this happens to other HOWTOs.

Sorry--I guess I should have said IANAL ;-)  I don't know about moral rights 
in the US--first time I heard about them was as a right that authors in other 
countries had.  You could be right.

Randy Kramer

On Sun, Apr 09, 2006 at 05:59:57PM -0700, David Lawyer wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 05, 2006 at 09:48:25AM +0200, Sergiusz Pawlowicz wrote:
> > Moving GFDL Documentation to non-free.<snip> 
> > 
> This is not a problem for LDP.  But in a way it is since per the
> manifesto we are supposed to be concerned with all aspects of Linux
> documentation, not just the documentation created by our authors.
> 
This "not a problem for LDP" depends on how your HOWTO's and so on are 
licensed. There has been long and intense discussion on the debian-project 
lists and on debian-legal - anyone involved with Debian will confirm that :(

There has been at least one General Resolution (GR in Debian-speak)
to try and sort out the GFDL mess. The concession is, if you will,
that GFDL documents without unmodifiable sections are free [Unmodifiable
sections includes specifically invariant sections and front/back cover
texts (which must be preserved) and acknowledgements and dedications
unless these can be removed].   

This is fine - for some values of fine - until you discover that, for 
example, the GIMP manuals are suddenly also non-free because they include 
minimal front cover text. As the GIMP maintainer in Debian put it - 
paraphrasing because I haven't the exact message to hand -
 "I asked them to change it and they said - Go ask the FSF" :(

> To split a software package into two parts because of the
> documentation license is absurd in this case (in my opinion).  I think
> that many of people that voted on this Debian policy didn't envision
> this kind of thing happening.
> 
No, but it's the logical corollary. The GR that passed specifically
suggested dual licensing of documentation to preclude these problems.
If you as an author have GFDL licensed documentation in your name
please also consider dual licensing under the GPL.

> The non-modifiable section is likely just a statement supporting free
> software (the GNU Manifesto ?).  What's wrong with that?  Well, it
> might be wrong if it was an advertisement of some sort.  Also, I think
> that there should be a time limit on how long such non-modifiable
> sections remain non-modifiable.
> 
Tell Richard Stallman please :( 

> I understand the GFDL is going to be modified this year, but I don't
> expect a lot of improvement.  Other problems with it is that it's too
> long and is supposed to be included with the doc, rather than by html
> reference.
> 

GFDL modification has been promised for a long time - I think Debian
have been actively talking for more than two years but I expect that it
will now take a back seat to GPL v3. At least in part, that's why
Debian has continued to make the statement that there are problems with
the GFDL and is now carrying it through into practice for the next
release (due Real Soon Now and possibly before December 2006).

Inclusion in the document - that's OK as a requirement, but it does make your 
documents significantly larger.

> Another situation is that many people don't understand that it's much
> more important to have a free license for software than it is to have
> a free license for documentation.  Non-free software can't be studied
> unless it's open source and even then it may be hard to study due to poor
> comments.  Not so for non-free documentation, where it's designed to be
> read and understood by the readers (users).  And readers can then
> utilize the facts they learn to write improved documentation since
> facts themselves are not copyrighted.
> 

I'm with you on the free license for software and all the DFSG
freedoms. Unfortunately, as has been demonstrated several times, it's
VERY hard to distinguish between documentation and software any more - 
in the widest sense, it's all just bits. Where do you draw the line -
Tex which builds its documentation, cweb which includes it as part of
the program ... There have been proposals for Debian Free Documentation
licenses before and they've all fallen foul of where you draw the
dividing line - the Debian consensus currently is that documentation ==
software and should enjoy the same freedoms (though there are inevitably
some who disagree and start flamewars about it :) ). 

It's sometimes quite useful to be able to quote a chunk/excerpt of program 
documentation in a wider context e.g. autoconf documentation in a wider 
<hypothetical> "HOWTO build all the GNU software you can eat" - you can't 
now do that without major problems.

> There's also the problem of people adding advertisements to
> documentation.  I checked on this a few years ago on the Internet for
> one of my HOWTOs and found many sites that had added advertising.  I
> suppose it's time to check again.

If they don't claim it's all their own work and give you due credit - do you
care?

> 
> All these problems mean that a new and better documentation license is
> needed and perhaps LDP could come up with one.  I'm not too encouraged
> since when I mentioned my proposal for prohibiting adding advertising
> to docs at the San Diego Doc Summit in 2001 there was only opposition.
> 

Please _DON'T_ make a new and better licence - we've enough already :(
Instead, please encourage dual licensing and freeing up of existing
documentation which is GFDL'd.

[Yes, I have read the follow up posts - I thought it best to respond
carefully to the original post. No, although I'm a Debian developer,
these are my opinions only - I'm speaking as a concerned individual,
co-maintainer of a HOWTO for a while and a free software zealot - I'm
explicitly not speaking for the Debian Project as a wider whole. I
trained to be a lawyer in England but have never practised. I _am_ a lawyer
in that sense - my undergraduate degree and postgraduate training was in
law - but these are in no sense legal opinions and should not
be considered as such].

> 			David Lawyer
> 

Andy  

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